Embezzlement Mysteries

Our local paper reported a 54-year-old woman bookkeeper busted for stealing over $800,000 from her employer, between 2009 and 2016, by writing over 1,000 unauthorized checks.

What makes this story noteworthy? Nothing! In fact, it’s ridiculously common, the paper is always full of similar embezzling bookkeeper stories. That’s what puzzles me.

How can they expect to get away with it? After all, these stories don’t report people getting away with it, they report people caught. All the time.

I do understand temptation and greed. I suppose it doesn’t take a criminal genius of a bookkeeper to see an opportunity. But, leaving aside concerns of morality and conscience, isn’t it recklessly risky? Don’t they read the papers and see how many are caught?

It may often start innocuously. “I’ll just borrow fifty bucks this way, I’ll put it back next week.” But next week comes and she doesn’t. And nothing happens. Soon it’s off to the races. Till she’s inevitably busted.

Yet, on the other hand, it’s also puzzling how long it often takes. Over seven years, this gal stole $800,000. With a thousand checks. Didn’t anyone notice? It’s a local business I’d never even heard of, so how big could it be, that $800,000 was overlooked for so long? But this too seems to be a strangely common pattern in all these embezzlement cases.

I don’t get it. More of life’s mysteries.

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